U.S. Adopts New Policy for Hearings On Political Asylum for Some Aliens

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The Government agreed today to stop detaining and deporting most illegal aliens from El Salvador and Guatemala and to adopt new procedures for their applications for political asylum.

The actions, in a settlement of a lawsuit filed five years ago in Federal District Court here, mean new hearings for 150,000 illegal aliens from El Salvador and Guatemala who have been denied political asylum or are awaiting decisions on their applications.

Also qualifying for hearings are about 350,000 other illegal aliens who have never sought asylum because the previous system was so weighted against them, said Marc Van Der Hout, a lawyer with the San Francisco chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs in the class-action suit,

At the heart of the suit was the assertion that the Government had not decided on the granting of political asylum in a neutral, non-political manner, as required by law. An Embarrassing Choice

Such applications have long presented the Government with an embarrassing choice. The United States supports the Governments of El Salvador and Guatemala, and at the same time it is asked by asylum applicants to find that they have a "well-founded fear of persecution" if they are returned home. Every approval of an application for political asylum thus amounts to an admission that the United States is aiding governments that violate the civil rights of their own citizens.

Since 1980 the Government has denied 97 percent of applications for political asylum by El Salvadorans and 99 percent of those by Guatemalans. During the same time, applications for political asylum by Eastern Europeans, Nicaraguans and residents of other countries have a high percentage of approval. For example, 76 percent of applications by residents of the Soviet Union were approved, as were 64 percent of those by residents of China.

In pre-trial rulings in the suit, Judge Robert F. Peckham of Federal District Court held that the low percentage of approval of asylum applications from El Salvadorans and Guatemalans made it futile for those aliens to continue to pursue the usual administrative process for legal residence in the United States.

Under the settlement, the Immigration and Naturalization Service agreed to no longer defer to the State Department regarding grants of political asylum. Praise for the Agreement

"We hope that 10 years of bias and hostility are finally over," said Lucas Guttentag, director of the Immigrants' Rights Project of American Civil Liberties Union and a lawyer in the suit. "For the first time, Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees will have a meaningful opportunity to secure political asylum under United States law."

Joseph C. Krovisky, the spokesman for the Justice Department in the matter, said today, "The Government believes it is a fair agreement. At this point we have no further comment."

The settlement means that all cases heard since 1980 will be reheard under regulations for asylum processing that were enacted this fall in conformity with the Refugee Act of 1980. Mr. Van Der Hout said these include the establishment of a corps of asylum officers who will no longer report to local immigration service officials, but will rather work at a Central Office for Refugees, Asylum and Parole in Washington.

In addition, the new asylum officers and immigration judges will receive training in international human rights issues. The churches and alien-rights groups that originally brought the suit will designate representatives to help conduct the training. A Humanitarian Gesture

The settlement also applies to all El Salvadoran illegal aliens who plan to register next year under a law guaranteeing them 18 months of "temporary protected status." The measure, which President Bush signed into law last month, is meant as a humanitarian gesture to those fleeing war in their homeland; El Salvadorans who are living in the United States illegally and who come forward and register obtain the right to live and work here temporarily.

Under the settlement, Mr. Van Der Hout said, those aliens can apply for political asylum at the end of the 18 months rather than face deportation. All those who have begun the asylum process may legally work in the United States.

The settlement averts a trial on the Government's immigration policies. Judge Peckham had ruled last year that such a trial could proceed on the aliens' claims of discriminatory denial of asylum in violation of their constitutional rights to free speech, equal protection and due process.

The judge has signed the preliminary settlement agreement and scheduled a final hearing for Jan. 31. In anticipation of the settlement, lawyers for the aliens said, the immigration service issued a memorandum last week halting the scheduled deportations of El Salvadorans and Guatemalans. It began taking applications for release from border detention centers today.

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"This settlement is a major victory for all Salvadorans and Guatemalans in this country whose claims for political asylum were being summarily denied for purely foreign policy reasons," Mr. Van Der Hout said. "The tragedy, however, is that it took 10 years for the Government to reverse its policy of putting support for the military governments of El Salvador and Guatemala over its human rights oblications to grant asylum to legitimate refugees." Campaign to Find Aliens

The Government has agreed to allocate $200,000 to work with churches, refugee social service centers and advocacy groups to locate illegal aliens who are affected by the settlement. The campaign will concentrate on the eight cities with the largest numbers of El Salvadoran and Guatemalan aliens: San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, Miami, Houston, Dallas and Chicago.

In response to arguments that the immigration service repeatedly deferred to State Department wishes in ruling on asylum applications, the Government specified that certain factors would no longer be proper for consideration in determining eligibility for political asylum. They are American foreign policy, border control and an applicant's coming from a country supported politically by the United States.

The lawsuit was filed in May 1985, a time when religious leaders and lay workers were offering sanctuary to El Salvadorans and others fleeing fighting in Central America and when the Government was charging sanctuary workers with violations of Federal law by assisting illegal aliens.

The suit originally sought to bar the Justice Department from prosecuting sanctuary workers, who claimed a constitutional right under the First Amendment's clause on free exercise of religion to protect people they viewed as refugees. It also charged discriminatory treatment in asylum and deportation of Central Americans who claimed to be refugees. Redrafting the Lawsuit

In a series of rulings, Judge Peckham dismissed the sanctuary workers' claims but allowed the suit to go forward on behalf of the illegal aliens. It was redrafted as a class-action case on behalf of all El Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants.

The Rev. Gustav H. Schultz, president of the National Sanctuary Defense Fund, called the settlement announced today "a vindication of the hundreds of people in the sanctuary movement who put life and liberty on the line to assist Central American refugees who were fleeing for their lives."

The Government has consistently argued that illegal aliens from Central America are not political refugees, but are economic refugees who come to the United States looking for jobs. Reason Is 'Obvious'

But one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Reginaldo Velasquez, who first fled El Salvador in 1980, said in an interview, "It is obvious that the war is what brings us up here. The reason why we come is political."

Mr. Velasquez, 28 years old, said he was a student in Uluazapa when he organized a local chapter of the Green Cross, an organization of relief workers that helps civilians and fighters on both sides of El Salvador's civil war. When several co-workers either disappeared or were killed, he fled to Mexico in 1980. He was caught and deported, but in 1984 he fled again. This time he was arrested in Texas just after crossing the Rio Grande.

Mr. Velasquez applied for asylum, and it was denied. He has been working as a cook in a San Francisco restaurant while waiting for a ruling from the Board of Immigration Appeals.

He said that he would like to return to Uluazapa, but that relatives have told him that soldiers still come to the house looking for him.

"Nothing has changed," Mr. Velasquez said. "The military people are still there, and they know me. Many people have died like this, and it could happen to me."

His hope is to gain political asylum in the United States.

"I always have doubts, but I think it's a very good chance," he said of today's settlement. "Perhaps this time things will be seen with a more human view."

A version of this article appears in print on December 20, 1990, on Page B00018 of the National edition with the headline: U.S. Adopts New Policy for Hearings On Political Asylum for Some Aliens. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe